Web designers and web developers are two of the most sought-after professions these days, and it's not as hard as it may seem to become one. With some free time, a keen interest, and a lot of practice and patience, you could find yourself making world-class websites and earning a nice income by doing so.

Steps

1

Learn from other great web designers and programmers. Take a look at other well-designed websites, and note how a menu or content area is laid out and then use that knowledge in your designs.

2

Get the right tools. Start by getting a good vector graphics editor such as Adobe Illustrator. Making images using vector graphics is the easiest way to grasp graphics design, so spending some money on something like Illustrator or Fireworks will be a great help. Inkscape is a nice free and open-source alternative for beginners.

3

Learn the skills you'll need. These skills include:

HTML

CSS

JavaScript

jQuery

PHP

SQL

Bootstrap

Of course there are many tutorials on the Web where you can learn these languages. But we want to know about the best place for learning. The most famous place (if you search on Google) is W3Schools. The six languages listed above are enough for a start. However there is no end of learning, especially in a Web Developer's life. The main purposes of these languages are:

HTML: For the main content of the webpage,

CSS: For the page style,

JavaScript: For dynamic content,

jQuery: For easy JavaScript scripting,

PHP: For server side scripting,

SQL: For database management.

BootStrap: Rapid development for websites that is mobile ready first.

Please find and study these tutorials on W3Schools. Also you should study other stuff in W3schools as well, because they are extremely helpful.

4

Create dynamic websites using PHP and MySQL. These technologies will enable you to create a website that does not require you to make individual HTML pages but allow you to use templates to display multiple pages within the same design.

5

Consider using a dynamic web service to improve the user experience (UX). Create a web site that uses AJAX so you can utilise the server-side power of PHP without having to refresh the page thus saving bandwidth and enabling you to create 'interactive' web applications.

6

Set up your computer as a productive website development environment. Install a web server on your Computer so that you can work on scripts locally without an Internet connection. If you choose the PHP route try http://www.wampserver.com/en/. If you use ASP.NET use IIS available on most versions of windows.

7

Practice using coding examples. Get yourself some script examples to "tinker" with: Finding a script to dissect is the best way to learn. Try CMS's like Drupal and Joomla

8

Be bold by starting a project when you have idea and some time. The best time to start making websites is as soon as possible, for two reasons; they can take a lot of time to complete, and you learn a lot just by making them. Don't worry too much about making it perfect the first time; one of the best things about websites is that they can always be improved at any time!

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Is it possible to make a living doing professional web design and programming?

wikiHow Contributor

Yes, you can make a living doing it. A lot of companies contract out their web design. However, to get started, you'll need some strong credentials until your portfolio is built, and will probably have to do some free work to get established.

Tips

Always design and develop websites on your computer (called a local development environment) before uploading the finished website to the website host (called the production environment).

Find inspiration from other websites and forums. These will help if you need inspiration, advice, or you find yourself in some trouble; chances are good that someone has already gone through the same problem before, and written about the solutions.

Keep up to date with current trends in the Internet industry. This should include figuring out what services are expected / needed / popular at the time, what design styles are most likely to be received well and enjoyed, and how a page will rank high in search engines (SEO).

Look up bootstrap and look through there code and use their code.

Warnings

Could be fun and addictive.

Things You'll Need

Design software such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Fireworks or GIMP

(open source) examples to read through.

HTML Editor - Notepad will work but there is other software that will make the job easier, Eclipse (open source) "web development tools" version or Adobe Dreamweaver. Try Notepad++ or Sublime Text.

To publish your website so others can see it on the Internet you'll need hosting